Scissors / Boys & Girls / New Additions

Yesterday, I was cleaning up the sunroom and found some long strips of very blonde hair. Avery-colored hair. "Avery, did you cut your hair?" Unflinching from the other room, "yes." "Avery can you come here please?" She came immediately. "Why did you cut your hair." "I just wanted to." Well, I guess if you ask the question, you get the answer. Ok, so now everyone is aware that we don't use scissors on our own hair or the hair of others with an adult's permission and supervision. Over the past several months, many people have asked me whether there is a big difference in raising boys and girls. I've always said that, at least so far, no. One morning this week, Iain had already left for work, the girls were still sleeping, I was in the shower, and Kai was crawling around the bathroom waiting for me to get out. After a couple of minutes, I peeked out at him to make sure he was okay. Um, yeah. He was okay. If you call swirling the toilet water with your hand okay. Well, not actually swirling it, just dipping his hand in and out. I said, "Kai, NO." He took his hand out. Looked back at me, put his hand back in. "Kai, NO!". He took his hand out, looked at me, put his hand back in. Can you see a pattern here? A few more iterations of this and then he moved on. But let me just confirm that I never had to ask the girls to get their hands out of the toilet. I think we might have a boy on our hands .... Today, we adopted a 4-year old calico cat named Rica (REE-ka). She is sweet and declawed and lets the girls carry her around everywhere (there were 2 minor biting incidents, one in the car and one on the way home, but we are chalking those up to stress and will give her a 24-hour settling period. Hopefully she gets her act together!

My beautiful morning

Yesterday morning at about 6:45, I heard Kai talking to himself in his crib. I got up to get him, but found that the door to his room was open, which is strange. I looked in and this is what I saw ....

Sweet Avery had gotten up, come down the stairs, gone into Kai's room, climbed into his crib and started playing with him. I don't know how didn't hear her or how she got in the crib, but it was beautiful!

Kai's new thing...

Tonight we put him in the bathtub. He grabbed the faucet to pull himsekf to standing. I sat him down again, and he immediately pulled himself back up. Apparently he only takes baths standing up now. Very safe. :-) As he was getting into the bathtub, Avery was changing out one tutu for another in her room. As background, Kai had drooled a tiny bit on her first one as they were playing together. When she saw Kai, she said with a totally serious but sweet voice, "kai, I warn you not to drool on this tutu. It's the last one I have in my drawer." I warn you???? I don't think I say that to them, but I Don't know where she gets this stuff.

New London

We are in CT this week. On the way here, we stopped to see the Statue of Liberty. The Statue is in Little Einsteins, which Audrey and Avery love. Also, last week, Kai raised one fist in the air and Audrey said "Kai is saying he wants to see the Statue of Liberty." So this stop seemed like a pretty good idea. Once we parked, we decided it was way too cold to get on the ferry with the kids and that no one would have a good time, so we just looked at it from the boardwalk and then went to the playground that was there instead ... very good call. Also a pic of the kids on a whale in front of the children's museum, of Kai in a bathing suit for the first time, and the 3 of them in their footy jammies this morning in the hotel. =) Yesterday, we went to the aquarium and Audrey touched a shark. So brave!

Easter

Iain and the girls made some crosses and tombs. They nailed Jesus to the cross and then before bed they put him in the tomb. When they woke up the next morning, we had put Jesus in the "sky". They were excited to look for Jesus and also to look for their Easter baskets! Also a family pic with terrible sunlight, but it's all we've got.

9 under 6!

Two weeks ago, we went to NC with my brother's family (2.5 year old and 14-month old twins), my cousin Jill and her family (3 year old and 17-month old), my cousin Kelley and her family (19-month old), my mom and my aunt and uncle. It was AWESOME! Not relaxing. Not even a little bit. But fun!! We stayed in two cabins next to each other, and mostly just moved between eating and nap times with a park or easter egg hunt sprinkled in.

Grandma Swisher

Iain's grandmother died at the end of March. She was 102 years old and had a pretty amazing life! She was very gracious to me from the time Iain and I met and I even went out there for a long weekend once sans Iain and we had lots of great conversation and laughter. Iain, the kids and I went to San Antonio for the funeral and had the great opportunity to see his family while we were there. Here are a few pix, including Kai sleeping in a dresser drawer (the hotel didn't have a crib).